Denver school shooting suspect posted online about mass shootings and neo-Nazi views, report says
apnews.com
Experts say a teenager suspected in a shooting attack at a suburban Denver high school that left two students in critical condition appeared fascinated with previous mass shootings including Columbine and expressed neo-Nazi views online.

DENVER (AP) — A teenager suspected in a shooting attack at a suburban Denver high school that left two students in critical condition appeared fascinated with previous mass shootings including Columbine and expressed neo-Nazi views online, according to experts.

Since December, Desmond Holly, 16, had been active on an online forum where users watch videos of killings and violence, mixed in with content on white supremacism and antisemitism, the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism said in a report.

Holly shot himself following Wednesday’s shooting at Evergreen High School in Jefferson County. He died of his injuries. It is still unclear how he selected his victims. The county was also the scene of the 1999 Columbine High School massacre that killed 14 people.

Holly’s TikTok accounts contained white supremacist symbols, the ADL said, and the name of his most recent account included a reference to a popular white supremacist slogan. The account was unavailable Friday. TikTok said accounts associated with Holly had been banned.

Holly’s family could not be reached. The Associated Press left a message at a telephone number associated with the house that police searched after the shooting.

  • dirigibles@lemmy.world
    11·
    14 hours ago

    I can’t read most of the small text in the ‘early warning signs’, but I think it mentions the Nazis, Mussolini, Spain, and Portugal and the rest is too blurry to make out. I’m guessing whoever made this ‘early warning signs’ was looking for similarities across all those regimes and lumping them all under the term ‘Fascism’? Which…feels weird to me, Mussolini was the only one to actually call themselves Fascist. The others had differing ideologies or were just straight up dictatorships (assuming the small text says Salazar and Franco, but I’m not 100% on that).

    And the Keene definition you linked to mentions ‘White replacement theory’ for some reason? Does that mean only white people can be fascist? Maybe they were just using it as an example of a fascist idea?

    I appreciate the reply, but I’m not sure either definition helps clear up how the term is used in modernity.

    If you want to know what Gentile was talking about when he was promoting Fascism, there’s a decent translation over here (not a quick read) - https://ia601807.us.archive.org/26/items/giovanni-gentile-english-translation/Origins And Doctrine Of Fascism - Giovanni Gentile.pdf

    • Duamerthrax@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      13 hours ago

      That list was created by Umberto Eco in 1995. If you’re having trouble reading that list you may need to figure out how to zoom on an image or just get glasses.

      1. The cult of tradition. “One has only to look at the syllabus of every fascist movement to find the major traditionalist thinkers. The Nazi gnosis was nourished by traditionalist, syncretistic, occult elements.”
      2. The rejection of modernism. “The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.” 3.The cult of action for action’s sake. “Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation.”
      3. Disagreement is treason. “The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge.”
      4. Fear of difference. “The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.”
      5. Appeal to social frustration. “One of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups.”
      6. The obsession with a plot. “Thus at the root of the Ur-Fascist psychology there is the obsession with a plot, possibly an international one. The followers must feel besieged.”
      7. The enemy is both strong and weak. “By a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak.”
      8. Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. “For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle.”
      9. Contempt for the weak. “Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology.”
      10. Everybody is educated to become a hero. “In Ur-Fascist ideology, heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death.”
      11. Machismo and weaponry. “Machismo implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality.”
      12. Selective populism. “There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.”
      13. Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak. “All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning.”
      • dirigibles@lemmy.world
        2·
        12 hours ago

        I did zoom! Everything got blurry. You might be right about the glasses though, my eyes are garbage.

        Thanks for the definition of Ur-Fascism from Mr. Eco. I was not familiar with it. Super interesting. He’s on point touching on ‘action’ and ‘eternal struggle’, pulling directly from Marx. Rejection of ‘the age of reason’, pulling from Hagel and/or Marx (depending on who you talk to). The Nazis also borrowed those concepts heavily. Some of this is slightly different from what Gentile wrote about, but it does adhere much closer to it. Creating the national narrative, appeals to emotion, celebrating machismo, nationalism, being one with the state, social darwinism/eugenics, etc etc etc. Very neat.

        One glaring difference is the racism part. Gentile made racism impossible within his Fascist ideology, so long as you adhered to the ‘proper thought’ you were in the club. For the Nazis, the racism/ethno-supremacy part was obviously at the core the beliefs they promoted.

        I just stumbled on a quote from historian Ian Kershaw that is very relevant, “trying to define ‘fascism’ is like trying to nail jelly to the wall” 😆

        Any who, I appreciate your reply and introducing me to Mr. Eco. I’m adding him to my ever growing list of authors to read more of.